Indian wedding fire kills 45

(updated 4th March 2004)

Friday 23 January 14:57 GMT By Suresh Seshadri

BOMBAY (Reuters) - A fire at a makeshift palm-frond wedding hall in southern India has killed 45 people, including the groom, and injured dozens more as the couple were about to take their vows, police say. Most of the victims apparently died of burns or asphyxiation from the smoke, police said, though small children may have been killed or injured as panicked guests stampeded down a narrow staircase. The dead included the 36-year-old groom, four children younger than eight and 20 women, police said. The bride survived with some bruises. Fifty-two people were injured and four of them were in a critical condition, police said. Police Commissioner Sunil Kumar Singh told Reuters the death toll could rise. "The death toll could increase since four of the 52 injured are right now in a critical condition. It is hard to evaluate the extent of internal damage in burn injuries so the condition of some more of the injured could even deteriorate," Singh said. Earlier, district officials said 51 people had died. An electrical short circuit probably caused the fire, which broke out in the makeshift enclosure set up on the terrace of a single-storey house in the Hindu temple town of Srirangam. "A cameraman was videographing the marriage and it appears the power drawn by the flash he was using may have been too much for the basic wiring provided in the makeshift hall, causing a short-circuit," Singh said. The town, located on a river island, is about 315 km (200 miles) south of Madras, capital of the state of Tamil Nadu. About 500 guests were at the ceremony when the fire started. The groom and bride were from middle-class Hindu families, and were set to take their vows before a sacred fire, in accordance with Hindu rites. "It is a very narrow staircase that leads up to the first floor structure and the sudden fire appears to have triggered complete panic," said Tharian Mathew, a reporter with the New Indian Express newspaper, who visited the site of the incident. "Footwear and flowers are strewn all over the place as the guests and the two families must have tried to rush out," hew said. "Some survivors said the religious fire and ingredients like oil and firewood stored to feed it may have helped fan the flames even more, though police are still investigating this," Mathew said.